hankyoreh

Iranians in Tehran set fire to photos of US President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden to protest the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. (Reuters/Yonhap News)

The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the “father of Iranian nuclear development,” is an issue with consequences for the Korean Peninsula.

US analysts agreed that the aim of the assassination was to hamper diplomatic efforts by the incoming administration of US President-elect Joseph Biden. During his campaign, Biden pledged that if elected, he would return the US to the Iranian nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) that current President Donald Trump withdrew from. Biden’s team has also said the Iranian nuclear deal would serve as a standard in addressing the North Korean nuclear issue.

Speaking to the Washington Post early this year, Biden said, “As president, I would renew a commitment to arms control for a new era — including North Korea.” He added that “the historic Iran nuclear deal the Obama-Biden administration negotiated blocked Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and it provides a blueprint for effective negotiation.”

In contributions to the New York Times, Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken has advised that rather than quashing the Iran nuclear deal, Trump should apply its basic framework to North Korea; as in the case of Iran, he has said once North Korea’s nuclear program has been frozen, all that remains is a negotiated agreement to roll it back.

For the Biden administration, restoring the Iran nuclear deal is a step toward negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue. That issue is not the only reason that Biden is seeking to return to the Iran deal. It is rooted in the “America is back” slogan that accompanied Biden’s announcements of his foreign policy and national security lineup. Restoring the Iran nuclear agreement is to be a test case in restoring the US’ damaged alliances and leadership after Trump’s “America First” campaign, which was isolated unilateralism at heart.

The Iran nuclear deal is an international agreement, with China, Russia, Germany, the UK, France, and the European Union also participating. Despite Trump’s unilateral move to abandon it, the other countries have continued to pledge to abide by its terms. If the US is unable to return to the agreement, it would make Biden’s declaration that “America is back” little more than a catchphrase. But the route back to the deal is a long and perilous one.

As can be seen from Trump’s actions in abandoning the agreement, there is a solid base of support in and around the US for nixing the deal and carrying on a hostile relationship with Iran. John Bolton may have been driven out by Trump as White House national security advisor, but the one thing the two of them could agree on was that the agreement needed to be ended and that a hardline approach should be adopted on Iran. In Washington, pretty much every conservative associated with the Republican Party is against normalizing relations with Iran. The reasons for this have to do with military-industrial complex interests.

The US has allies in the Middle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. It hardly needs mentioning that US politicians continue taking cues from pro-Israel Jewish groups. University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University professor Stephen Walt set off shockwaves when they claimed in their 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” that US foreign policy pursued Israel’s national interests rather than the US’ own. There are also Christian evangelical denominations in the US that are growing in political influence. To them, Israel is “good” and Iran “evil.”

While it is an open secret that Fakhrizadeh’s assassination was carried about by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, as an act of sabotage against diplomatic efforts by the Biden administration, both Biden’s camp and the US political community have kept quiet. The Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts toward a return to the Iran deal risk bringing fierce opposition from out of the woodwork.

The Middle East’s influence on the Korean Peninsula is not restricted to petroleum prices. There are various other links between the Middle East and Korean Peninsula. Toward the end of the Bill Clinton administration in 2000, then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited North Korea and negotiated an agreement for Clinton to visit North Korea and establish US-North Korea relations. Clinton never ended up going. In July of that year, the Camp David Summit on peace in the Middle East broke down, and the Oslo Accords, with their pledges for an independent Palestinian state, failed to come to fruition. On a visit to South Korea after leaving office, Clinton lamented that while he should have visited North Korea to resolve the nuclear issue, his hands had been tied by the Middle East.

Antagonistic relations with North Korea continued under the George W. Bush administration, which listed North Korea in its “Axis of Evil” alongside Iraq and Iran. The Barack Obama administration’s “strategic patience,” which amounted to neglecting North Korea issues as the result of Washington channeling all its diplomatic resources into the Iran nuclear deal and other Middle East issues.

The matter of restoring the US-Iran nuclear deal may be outside the scope of South Korea’s influence. With the Biden administration obliged to focus on restoring the Iran agreement, South Korea needs to stabilize inter-Korean relations. This is also a matter of creating an environment that will reduce the amount of diplomatic energy the Biden administration will have to spend on negotiating with Pyongyang. The crisis is also an opportunity.

Jung E-gil

By Jung E-gil, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]